The important distinction between mourning and complaining
The professional world is collapsing around us. And there are two choices.
Our learning patterns are all skewed, growth has two equal but opposite meanings, and no one seems to agree on the meaning of art anymore.
The professional world is collapsing around us. At least in the ways that count.
We’re in a reactionary phase. Technology does this to us a lot. It involves a lot of complaints. Grievances aired. Horror stories and digital outcries. But reactionary is the moment of now, and complaints are only one choice for how we move on. There’s a line past lashing out, after which comes something to be achieved during this phase.
What are we mourning? Something different from everyone else is the definitive answer, but if we don’t allow ourselves the copout, mourning looks something like a reaction attached to:
Experiences had and things earned
Formative and life-altering moments
Entire journeys from point A to point B
What do these have in common? They’re massive. Unforgettable themes stamped on the film strip of life. We mourn the loss of the meaningful.
We complain about the annoyances of the inane.
All of the complaining I do is micro. I hate doing this or I wish I didn’t have to that. It’s, by definition, reactionary. Like picking something up off the table in front of us and throwing it into the far corner of the room.
The complaints you’ll see at this moment? AI takes away my ability to do this. Because of AI, we’ll never have those again.
Whether we complain or mourn is, of course, a choice. Just like a commitment to becoming a damn good copywriter. Or the satisfaction of a trip spent years in the planning.
How do we make it the easier choice? In my experience, that choice feels easier when:
we look at what’s lost as the opportunity to gain something new
we have a good laugh at the tropes (“learning an art is going to go away!”)
we deepen our appreciation for whatever it is we’ve done or honed (the longer journeys)
When we mourn, we look for the good things. And when we look for the good things, we remember what was good about them. And only when we do that is there a path toward finding a satisfactory ways to replace them.
So when you think about AI, are you complaining or are you mourning?